It is a prevailing sentiment that the West has fallen behind the East, and specifically the Southeast, in college football. The death of the Pac-12 serves as the exclamation point for that. It’s been six years since a Pac-12 team made the playoffs. Stanford and Cal are joining the “Atlantic Coast Conference” just to retain relevance in the national discussion. California high school football is still a hotbed of talent, but increasingly the St. John Bosco and Mater Dei stars are increasingly choosing Alabama and Georgia and Ohio State over USC, UCLA and Oregon. All that said, the 2023 season is off to a wild start and the interest has all been on the “Left Coast”…or at least east of the Mississippi. If the first two weeks are any indication, it’s going to be a beautiful swan song for the Pac-12 and a wild ride to the postseason.

Rose Bowl (#1 vs. #4)- Texas vs. Washington

Which is more impressive: Texas going into Tuscaloosa and coming out with a win or Florida State’s dominant performance against LSU on Labor Day? Time will tell. Once we know more about Alabama and LSU that question will become easier to answer, but for now the nod goes to Texas for doing it on the road. Quinn Ewers looked great. Xavier Worthy and A.D. Mitchell are a receiving duo of equal measure with the touted groups in Columbus and Seattle. More importantly, Texas’s defense looked fast and physical. If Texas can avoid their classic mid-season letdown, this team is a playoff contender.

Washington handled Tulsa last week, as they should. Their two-game resume, when considering quality of opponent, is arguable less impressive than Ole Miss’s or North Carolina’s, but when you consider the committee’s “four best teams” dictum it becomes hard to argue against Washington based on how they have played to start the season. They have measured up to the pre-season hype so far and have played like a top-four team.

Sugar Bowl (#2 vs. #3)- Florida State vs. Colorado

The Deion Bowl can remain a viable postseason outcome for at least another week. Florida State followed up their dominant Labor Day performance by taking care of business against Southern Miss. There isn’t much that needs to be added to what I said about them last week, except that the Jordan Travis Heisman odds look like they are going to continue to get shorter and shorter. The Noles clearly look like the best team in the conference right now, and the race for the right to play them for the conference title is the ACC storyline to follow.

Colorado is a flawed team, but weathering a physical and sloppy start against Nebraska demonstrated the improved toughness and mentality that Deion has brought to this program. Travis Hunter is still a problem and will continue to be. The Buffs are small up front though, and that will be the problem for them against the Washingtons and Oregons of the conference when physical line play will be the deciding factor in who wins and who loses.

Orange Bowl- Notre Dame vs. Miami

Catholics vs. Convicts for a new generation anyone? Notre Dame continues to show up and show out. They haven’t had their first real test yet, don’t worry those are coming, but the Sam Hartman experience is off to a successful start. Battling terrible weather and an NC State team that has a veteran quarterback, Virginia transfer Brennan Armstrong, the Irish still managed to control the game and never seemed in any danger of losing.

Miami continuing to own Jimbo Fisher even after he leaves Tallahassee is on-brand for both parties. Texas A&M, if nothing else, has plenty of talent on the defensive side of the ball but they had no answer for Tyler Van Dyke and the Canes’ offense. This game may end up saying more about the Aggies than Miami, but regardless it’s a good early season win for Miami and they have to feel like contenders in an open ACC race.

Fiesta Bowl- Washington State vs. Duke

Speaking of on-brand, Washington State pulling off a home upset against Wisconsin in a game they never trailed? That sounds about right. The Coogs have always been a quirky team, and unfortunately playing in a town of 30,000 people in the rural Pacific Northwest doesn’t lend itself to attracting Power Five attention with the crumbling of the Pac-12. Even if Wazzu’s time as a Power Five team is limited, their days as a season spoiler and destroyer of dreams will remain. Never change Wazzu.

Duke followed up their upset of Clemson by dominating Lafayette. I still don’t know if Duke’s win over Clemson says more about Duke or Clemson, but I suspect the latter. Riley Leonard is a legitimate NFL prospect, even if he can’t turn in a paper on time allegedly, and with him at the helm there’s no reason Duke can’t be in the thick of the twice-before-mentioned ACC race.

Cotton Bowl- Wyoming vs. North Carolina

The main objective of this weekly exercise is to provide a snapshot of how the college football season is unfolding on a week-to-week basis. The secondary objective is to try to find fun bowl matchups. This one highlights the second objective. It seems fitting that a “Cowboys” should be playing at the Jerry World Cotton Bowl, which leaves Oklahoma State and Wyoming as your options. Wyoming is off to a hot start with a double overtime win over a Texas Tech team that gave Oregon a run for their money last weekend, then followed that up by taking care of business against Portland State. That’s as much as any other Group of Five team can say for their resume through two weeks. We’ll see what the Wyoming Cowboys have against Texas this weekend.

The second piece of this as a fun bowl game story is bringing Mack Brown back to Texas! North Carolina needed every bit of two overtimes to hold on against Appalachian State, and while that’s not a great sign, they have still shown enough firepower on offense and modest improvement on defense to consider them a threat in the ACC. Mack Brown may want you to ignore them, but Drake Maye makes that impossible. He is still the best quarterback in the conference and capable of keeping North Carolina in any game. A home game against a punchless Minnesota offense should be another pad to the resume before starting conference play.

Peach Bowl- Ole Miss vs. Penn State

Ole Miss was my first team out of the playoffs this week. There is a reasonable case to say their 17-point road win over Tulane trumps either of Washington’s two wins from a resume standpoint. However, as mentioned above, the dominance that the Huskies showed, especially in the win over Boise State, was enough to keep them in for this week. Plus, it hurts Ole Miss some that Tulane had Kai Horton taking snaps instead of Michael Pratt. Horton acquitted himself well, but he’s not Michael Pratt. Ole Miss is a quality team and with Quinshon Judkins they can run the ball on anyone. Given what we have seen from the other SEC West teams, this could be Ole Miss’s time to reach its first SEC Championship Game.

Penn State gets the obligatory Big Ten spot for the week. One of the unintended negative consequences of the SEC and Big Ten’s stranglehold on college football is the lack of impetus for the two conferences to challenge themselves early. It wasn’t that long ago that the opening two weeks of the schedule were packed with major non-conference showdowns. We still get some teasers here and there but with the lack of challenges it’s hard to give teams’ early benefits of the doubt when they win in less-than-impressive fashion. We talked about Penn State last week, and they have shown the most of any Big Ten team so far, but truthfully, it’s still hard to gauge where the Big Ten East race is headed.

Cover Photo Courtesy of Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images